Does a little rust really hurt your reef that much & do you worry about it?

[Paul B]

many people call the bluish corrosion of copper 'a type of rusting' -

Many people would be wrong.

From Wikipedia:
Rusting is the common term for corrosion of iron and its alloys, such as steel. Many other metals undergo "similar" corrosion, but the resulting oxides are not commonly called rust.[2]

 

[MartinWaite]

Some 30 odd years ago I had a fish only tank running on undergravel plates and I kept loosing the odd fish and checked for everything I could back then and nothing was amiss. Then the owner of my lfs said have you ran a magnet over your sand? Which I hadn't so I went home and removed all the decorative corals and ran a magnet over the sand bed only to find what I took to be a boat/ships rivet and several little bits of rusty metal. I returned the coral and after a large water change or two the fish seemed different and I lost no more fish.

My next episode of rust was only last year when things didn't seem to be going right with my soft and LPS corals. I'd been reading about someone who had similar problems and an ICP pointed to rusty metal it their tank and they discovered it to be a heater. Anyway I started to check everything and in the end I found the shaft on my wet side small wavemaker was all rusty and the plastic coating on the shaft was all bust open. I had only bought the wet side a few months before but didn't have the receipt so the shop wouldn't do anything about it. After removing the rusty wet side and using carbon and poly filters the tank settled back down and the corals returned to their former glory.

 

[Back where it all began]

As Neil Young said “rust never sleeps” haha.

 

[Daniel@R2R Verified Admin]

Obviously it’s going to depend on what’s rusting but I can say with 100% certainty that some rusting magnets can crash a tank..

I had a thriving 3 year old mixed nano tank that started going down hill fast, My Mont’s died, my Zoa’s melted, all my LPS started receding I did everything I could think of trying to save my tank including multiple searches over a couple weeks for anything that was rusting.

I finally found the culprit (rusting magnet) it was pulled followed by a large water change and I also added poly filters. within a couple day’s I saw a dramatic improvement in the tank and that continued until things where basically back to normal.

Not sure what was in that magnet but it was definitely a tank killer.

Yep.

 

[nmo0ory]

my friend had some problem with his tank sps are gone one by one
today he found out that his UV from corallife has all rust from inside so he is 90% sure all his problem was from it
but he just remove it and did a large water change
will cheek with him soon to see what happen after he removed it

 

[revhtree Verified Admin]

BUMP for continued discussion!

 

[Back where it all began]

I suppose that it is a matter of scale but don't they sink ships to create the beginnings of a reef?

 

[MnFish1]

I would say 'no' - except it depends on how much 'rust' - in what size tank - and what other metals are also combined.?

 

[Raptor72]

Like many, I also dealt with a rusty magnet. It took out most of my colonies right after I removed it. I vacuumed out that section of sump, did several water changes but the damage had been done.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Thats a bit !!
Ive had clamps rust and no effect from what I can see

 

[dhanking]

I don't really worry about it because I buy items that won't rust. And even if they do a little rust won't hurt I don't think. Depends on tank size too.

 

[stevewright1]

I have had Stainless steel blades showing evidence of what appears to be rust (brownish stains appearing but no visible evidence of corrosion ) and in those cases I just clean and continue to use
and have never witnessed any adverse reaction from corals or inverts

I have recently had an issue which turned out to be with a sealed magnet showing major signs of rusting (broke the housing open on a few mag mount products to find where my problem was )


I believe the reason as others have stated is the release of other metals into the water
in the case of the magnets, they are nickel coated but I found out from research that a layer of copper is often 1st platted prior to the platted nickel and thus I suspect it was leaching copper that caused my issues (lost a cleaner shrimp and a few snails , corals started to shrink/ not open as fully as they had been in the past)

removal of said magnet and then Cuprizorb added to filtration seems to have reversed the problem for me

 

[Cu8ano]

Like many, I also dealt with a rusty magnet. It took out most of my colonies right after I removed it. I vacuumed out that section of sump, did several water changes but the damage had been done.

Any update on your recovery? I just went through the same. Found a rusty magnet in my rodi barrel after a couple months of watching odd and random heads die off of blastos, chalice recession, torch tissue recession, stn on sps starting with a slow creep from the edge, random euphyllia polyp bail. I’m 3 weeks post magnet removal but like you said, the damage is already done. Rust is a no go for your system. If you have it, in my honest opinion it’s only a matter of time before it catches up. Mine was being introduced via auto top off. Glad I caught it finally but not before losing thousands in livestock.

 

[Beefyreefy]

Personally, I thought I had a rust problem. I found a rusty nail in my top off water bucket, coras were dying and ICP showed high levels of tin. Despite removing the nail and performing massive water changes, tin remained elevated. It turned out that my cheap diy plastic tub sump was leaching tin. A glass aquarium sump cured the problem. At least in my case, I think the rust was never a problem. I aslo hear people saying that rusted screws on their stand are contamination their tanks and I find this very hard to believe.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I aslo hear people saying that rusted screws on their stand are contamination their tanks and I find this very hard to believe.

Why?

Have you calculated how much copper it takes to boost a tank to problematic levels and conclude it cannot come from corroding screws?

Supposing that 90 ppb (0.09 mg/L) copper is enough to cause issues (there was a case yesterday in the chem forum with a guy using brass connectors and dead corals), then let's see how much that is.

In a 100 Liter aquarium, it takes 9 mg of copper to hit that level.

A 1/2 inch 8-32 pan head screw weighs about 4 pounds per thousand screws, or 0.004 pounds per screw or 1.8 grams (1800 mg) per screw.

Thus, 9 mg is about 0.5% of a single screw.

Could not 0.5% of a brass screw above a tank have corroded and the little bits or drips from it fall into a tank?

Similar calculations could be done for other metals, such as zinc, nickel, etc.

 

[Bruce Burnett]

Why?

Have you calculated how much copper it takes to boost a tank to problematic levels and conclude it cannot come from corroding screws?

Supposing that 90 ppb (0.09 mg/L) copper is enough to cause issues (there was a case yesterday in the chem forum with a guy using brass connectors and dead corals), then let's see how much that is.

In a 100 Liter aquarium, it takes 9 mg of copper to hit that level.

A 1/2 inch 8-32 pan head screw weighs about 4 pounds per thousand screws, or 0.004 pounds per screw or 1.8 grams (1800 mg) per screw.

Thus, 9 mg is about 0.5% of a single screw.

Could not 0.5% of a brass screw above a tank have corroded and the little bits or drips from it fall into a tank?

Similar calculations could be done for other metals, such as zinc, nickel, etc.

Hi Randy,
I am definitely not a chemist but who uses a brass screw. Also it would vary would it not if one is doing water changes. Screws containing high copper is not commonly used that I am aware of around a reef tank, a power cable with broken insulation might be more common and higher copper content. Obviously size tank, frequency and size of water changes can change the effect of rust from any metal be it hose clamp, magnets, screws or nails. I get what some might be saying, just because you have a little rust on a hose clamp or magnet, rusty door hinge or screw don't automatically blame it when you are having sudden coral problems. I bet sometimes it could be that soap they have on their hands. I know every time I had losses it was my error not the surface rust on the hose clamp.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Hi Randy,
I am definitely not a chemist but who uses a brass screw.

Brass connector in the water:

NEED HELP INTERPRETING ICP

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Brass valve in the water:

Help - my cleaner crew is dead

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Brass fittings in the water:

High ammonia

That’s perfect. We need to be able to demonstrate what it reads against what we know post-cycle reefs run at, always. If it’s not zero still it will help to see, it will help benchmark the test kit for accuracy

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Brass check valve:

Would a Constant pH (8.3) be Beneficial to (SPS) Coral Growth?

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Brass pipe:

Coppersafe removal- help please

Hi, I need a little advice. I have been using Mardel Coppersafe in my 30 gal QT for a month now. My question is what's the best way to remove to remove the coppersafe? My fish are going to have to stay in the QT for another 45 day or so because an ick outbreak in the DT.

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Brass plug in UV:

First Triton test

Not sure where to start or why some of these numbers would be high. Any advice is welcome.

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Brass weight holding down dosing tube

Triton lab data interpretation

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[Bruce Burnett]

Thanks I keep forgetting the errors people do especially with brass fitting.. Brass and bronze fitting were common on boats to keep growth down but all had to be tied (wired) together to keep galvanic corrosion down. Guess that should be the first sentence on how to setup a saltwater tank. DO NOT USE COPPER, BRASS OR OTHER METAL PLUMBING.

 

[PeterB113]

Yes GFO is rust but the metals that would rust in our tanks are like made of alloys of other metal and could possibly hurt your tank IMO

 

[jdiefenbaugh]

Lost 40 corals to this MP60 unknowingly being totally rusted.